Dormant PyPI Package Compromised to Spread Nova Sentinel Malware

-

 

Nova Sentinel Malware

A dormant package available on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository was updated nearly after two years to propagate an information stealer malware called Nova Sentinel.

The package, named django-log-tracker, was first published to PyPI in April 2022, according to software supply chain security firm Phylum, which detected an anomalous update to the library on February 21, 2024.

While the linked GitHub repository hasn't been updated since April 10, 2022, the introduction of a malicious update suggests a likely compromise of the PyPI account belonging to the developer.

Django-log-tracker has been downloaded 3,866 times to date, with the rogue version (1.0.4) downloaded 107 times on the date it was published. The package is no longer available for download from PyPI.

"In the malicious update, the attacker stripped the package of most of its original content, leaving only an __init__.py and example.py file behind," the company said.

The changes, simple and self-explanatory, involve fetching an executable named "Updater_1.4.4_x64.exe" from a remote server ("45.88.180[.]54"), followed by launching it using the Python os.startfile() function.

The binary, for its part, comes embedded with Nova Sentinel, a stealer malware that was first documented by Sekoia in November 2023 as being distributed in the form of fake Electron apps on bogus sites offering video game downloads.

"What's interesting about this particular case [...] is that the attack vector appeared to be an attempted supply-chain attack via a compromised PyPI account," Phylum said.

"If this had been a really popular package, any project with this package listed as a dependency without a version specified or a flexible version specified in their dependency file would have pulled the latest, malicious version of this package."


-REFERENCE: https://thehackernews.com/2024/02/dormant-pypi-package-compromised-to.html

K.Z

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CISA and ENISA enhance their Cooperation

-
Image
  The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) has signed a Working Arrangement with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) of the US, in the areas of capacity-building, best practices exchange and boosting situational awareness. Geopolitics have shaped the cyber threat landscape, bringing like-minded partners closer together in the wake of common cyber challenges and advances in digital technologies. Today at the EU-US Cyber Dialogue, ENISA and CISA announced the signing of their Working Arrangement as an important milestone in the overall cooperation between the United States and the European Union in the field of cybersecurity, also following the Joint Statement of European Commissioner Thierry Breton and U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas of January 2023. ENISA’s International Strategy directs the Agency to be selective in engaging with international partners and to limit its overall approach in international cooperation to those...
Read more

Top Five Most Exploited Vulnerabilities in January 2024

-
Image
In January 2024, cybersecurity faced a remarkable surge in threats, with a focus on exploiting vulnerabilities in technologies from leading vendors. This spike in cyber attacks highlighted the urgent necessity for robust security posture and swift responses to mitigate these vulnerabilities.  Below is an in-depth analysis of the most critical vulnerabilities targeted during January. CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887:   CISA Warns Against Ivanti Zero-Day Vulnerabilities On January 19, 2024, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an alert regarding two critical zero-day vulnerabilities discovered in Ivanti products:  CVE-2023-46805 and  CVE-2024-21887.  Assigned CVSS scores of 8.2 (High) and 9.1 (Critical), these vulnerabilities underscore a significant risk to cybersecurity, marked by their capability for arbitrary command execution. This prompted an emergency directive for immediate mitigation within federal agencies, highlighting the...
Read more

SmartScreen Vulnerability: CVE-2024-21412 Facts and Fixes

-
Image
On Feb. 13, 2024, Microsoft issued a  patch  for CVE-2024-21412, a  Microsoft Defender SmartScreen  vulnerability revolving around internet shortcuts. Previously, we discovered that an advanced persistent threat (APT) group we track under the name Water Hydra has been exploiting CVE-2024-21412 in a sophisticated campaign targeting financial market traders, allowing the group to bypass Microsoft Defender SmartScreen and infect its victims with the DarkMe remote access trojan (RAT). Threat actors are constantly finding new ways of identifying and exploiting gaps to bypass security measures. We found that the bypass of CVE-2023-36025 (a previously patched SmartScreen vulnerability) led to the discovery and exploitation of CVE-2024-21412. This highlights how threat actors can circumvent patches by identifying new vectors of attack around a patched software component. It is important that organizations are able to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities, especiall...
Read more